I’m starting a new series here called, “Behind the Design“. So often you see my polished-up finished designs but rarely do you see behind the scenes. In this series I’d love to give you a peek at my process of crafting fun and memorable brands and designs for my awesome clients.

We’ll start with my recent web and branding project for Tricia, who’s an inspiring life coach from California.

Tricia and I started her project with a meaningful conversation in order for me to get to know her and understand her needs. We developed a mood board based on the words “bright, inviting, with just a touch of sparkle” and included images that evoked what she wanted to be known for as a coach. She also wanted her website to convey the sense of freedom and deep life transformation that women experience when they work with her as a life coach.

There was mention of “scripty lettering” in our initial conversation so I broke out the watercolors and lettered Tricia’s name. I then converted that into vector artwork (the black and coral options) that had a very handmade look about it.

Color palette time! When my clients give me hints about what colors they’re leaning towards for their brands, I love to give them several color palette options to choose from. I included a bit of pattern to spice things up.

Once the colors were finalized I began working with several combinations of fonts for Tricia’s logo.

And I pulled together a few more font combination options for her web fonts and copy layout for the site.

Here’s the final logo and colors we landed on after a variety of options and revisions.

We paired up these fonts for her website and I started work on the graphics for the website and print material.

Business cards! These cards also went through several revisions. Picture, color, font, and layout changes. That’s all part of the process of working with me as your graphic designer through the stages of brand development.

Throughout a branding project I’ll refer back to the mood board created at the onset of the project. I noticed Tricia had pinned some watercolor pieces as inspiration for her brand. I broke out the watercolors again and painted custom and vibrant “sidebars” for Tricia’s website.

The sidebars look like this once I added text to them. You’ll see how they’re placed once you visit Tricia’s finished website.

One of my favorite things to do for clients is create custom graphics. Stock graphics are great and all… but I love to offer my entrepreneurs something that’s just for them. This helps establish their brand. On another level it creates visual consistency within their projects and makes their businesses more memorable.

I wanted to give each page on Tricia’s website a bright and freedom-filled feel so I made these graphics with some inspirational words from Tricia.

Instant excitement welled up when I saw Tricia’s photos from her photographer. They practically glowed and most certainly exuded the vibrant life she’s hoping to guide others to. They fit in perfectly with the way the brand was developing. I used a different picture of her for various pages on her website and included more uplifting words from Tricia.

If you’re an entrepreneur with daring dreams and you’re looking to make them a reality… I’m here to help with the design side. My schedule is filling up quickly for these next two months but I’d love to connect.